Pie, mash and licker
The end of a South London institution
As we sat on the 355 bus from Brixton to Tooting last Saturday, my father became a tour guide of his memories with a passenger of one, pointing out familiar haunts along the route. There’s the White Eagle Club, a Polish community centre that hosted popular dances on the weekends; the Art Deco apartment blocks comprising Du Cane Court, home to local legends and a popular filming location; and several pubs accompanied by the familiar refrain of “your uncle Roy used to love it there,” or “your uncle Dave used to host disco nights here”.
We were making the three hour round trip to visit a special site of our own: Harrington’s pie and mash shop, on Tooting’s Selkirk Road. The same family has run the shop for generations since it first opened in 1908, and my father has been eating his pie, mash and licker there since he was a child growing up in 1950s Balham. It’s an area unrecognisable from the postwar grit of then, now filled with the two extremes of humankind on a Saturday morning: the joggers and the brunchers.
When I saw that the shop was closing on 29 March, I knew we had to visit it together one last time. I had last been to Harrington’s in April last year, on a more sombre occasion as a man I love very much was living his final days in St George’s Hospital nearby. Lacking clarity, I brought the pies to the stale and sterile ICU ward waiting room, forgetting that it wasn’t really the right setting in which to eat them. I knew F would have found it funny hearing others’ grumbles about the pungent smell of the meat pies and parsley licker marinating in my bag.
This time, we arrived at the shop with cheerful anticipation, and not too long a queue — although that had changed by the time we left. Monochromatic framed photographs on the walls documented the shop in the decades gone by and the family members who have faithfully stewarded it through more than a century of business. The handwritten “sorry no eels sold out” and “cash only” signs on the counter made me smile, as did the small crates for cutlery and condiments on each table imprinted with market traders’ stamp marks.
I think there can sometimes be a tendency in contemporary food writing to overromanticise (bordering on fetishise) working class establishments like Harrington’s. Everything is deliberately written to have a meaning, or a meaning is derived from everything: the flecks in the marbled tabletops represent the kaleidoscopic swirls of experiences from everyone who has ever eaten at that exact seat, the cash register’s mechanical clangs symbolise a ‘community’s' steadfast refusal to move into the ‘modern’ world, etc etc.
To be sure, I’m poking fun at myself here too: I have also overwritten and heightened the description of such places (maybe even in this very text). But I do think sometimes it’s ok to call a spade a spade, or pie a pie.
That’s what it is for my father. We sat opposite eachother enjoying our twin meals, him sprinkling vinegar on his, mixing in with the licker and mash. Behind him through the metal fly screen, I had a view of the inner kitchen workings where the mechanised pastry cutter spat out dozens of beige ovals ready to be moulded. As we savoured our pies (we are both slow eaters), we chatted about the last few shops that are left in this disappearing slice of London life, counting them on our fingers. Farewell Harrington’s, and thank you for the memories.
Three Leaves
There are devastating scenes coming out of Myanmar and Thailand following the earthquake — Better Burma has set up this emergency fundraiser here. Thank you
for sharing this link. june has also written an excellent post this week on about the bizarre banality of watching genocide through our social media feeds: “i pledge to never not feel devastated at the sight of genocide. i pledge to always be incentivised into action by that devastation.”I admire Janey Starling and Level Up’s work so much, and their latest No Births Behind Bars protest looked amazing. After three years of campaigning, British courts will be actively directed not to send pregnant women to prison and to give community or suspended sentences instead as of next week. It’s a major feminist campaigning win and a big reason to stay hopeful.
I have been waking up naturally at 6am most mornings this week, and that’s my body telling me spring is here — my favourite time of year. The fact that it’s both a solar eclipse and the clocks are going forward this weekend feels like some kind of sign, of renewal and rebirth.
And updates from me
Quite a few! And here is the space to say, thank you so much for continuing to stick with me through this (unintentional) three month long hiatus. Term has now ended and I finally feel like I am coming up for a bit of air and headspace.
Before Christmas, I spoke to the Guardian about the future of underrepresented voices in the media.
I was longlisted for Netflix’s Documentary Talent Fund — a competition open to first time documentary filmmakers across the UK looking to make their first short. Although I didn’t make it all the way, I’m really proud to have been longlisted and am on the lookout for opportunities to make this film a reality. Here’s the list of winners, and thank you very much to Cici Peng, Matt Cullum and Daisy Ifama for all the help and support with the application.
For Picturehouse UK and MilkTea Films, I interviewed… Lucy Liu!? That is still a really bonkers sentence to write. We did a recorded Q+A to mark the release of her new film Presence, and talked all things horror, her approach as an actor and a director, and changes and challenges in ESEA representation on screen.
For Lunar New Year, London Museum commissioned me to write about the different ways the festival has been celebrated in the capital over time, including my own changing relationship with it.
Over on fragments, we published the third and final contribution to our series Apart, which explores experiences of sibling loss and migration. We’re so proud to have worked with Yolly and Vangie, two members of The Voice of Domestic Workers, in this collaborative audio storytelling piece.
Jessie Lau and I hosted a freelance pitching workshop for NüVoices, an independent non-profit collective supporting the diverse creative work of women and other underrepresented voices/communities working on the subject of China.
For ELLE’s February digital cover, I profiled Aimee Lou Wood alongside with five British screen stars to watch, including the very lovely David Jonsson.
On 7 April, I’ll be doing a virtual talk for the Education University of Hong Kong on the craft of writing for a general audience, something I’ve been thinking a lot about this term while doing my academic writing for my MA. More info and registration here.
Today was a long overdue Saturday special — normal fortnightly Tuesday editions will be resuming 8 April.
Thank you again, and until next time, take care,
Suyin x